HEATHERS: THE MUSICAL (2025)
Book, Music and Lyrics by Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe
Based on the screenplay by Daniel Waters
Directed by Andy Fickman
New World Stages
Official Website
Reviewed by David Spencer
Heathers, though off-Broadway, was the Broadway-scale sleeper of its debut in 2014. Upon its return—and to the same venue—it’s still quite effective. Though I have a new caveat I’ll save for the end.
First things first: This musical of its namesake cult black comedy horror-suspense film Heathers is more wicked fun than you expect it to be, even more than it has any right to be, if musical theatre history is any barometer. Usually the musicals based on these B-movies (with the notable exception of Little Shop of Horrors, which started the trend) are inferior adaptations that default to adding camp; but adapters Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe (who wrote book, music and lyrics in tandem) have known enough to let the camp of Daniel Waters’ original screenplay speak for itself, and play the story out for real stakes.
Real stakes, I hasten to add, are not humorless stakes—dialogue, lyrics and even music are a witty, tasty evocation of Midwestern high school life (and the pop music that would inform its vocabulary) of 1989. Without spoiling too much for those who may not know the film going in (and fitst time through, I didn’t), it tells the tale of Veronica Sawyer (Lorna Cortney), a girl teen who wants acceptance into the inner-circle of the ultra-hip, the controlling and opinion-making Heathers…which she gets…but discovers the personal cost is too high. And then discovers that the cost of getting out is even higher.
One of the earliest signs that you’re in good hands with the creative team (including director Andy Fickman) is that in the wake of an assured, unambiguous set of opening images, with narrative and music kicking in to set the tone quickly, the audience—that part of them hip to the film—cheers as each of the main characters is introduced. Not just out of recognition; but out of some collectively sensed gestalt that the iconography is right, that the beloved property is going to be well-represented. Given the nature of Heathers that’s a response no other musical is ever likely to have…but in its self-defined context, it’s major. And the show then proceeds to live up to it. On tyop of which it is again excellently cast (Casey Likes, McKenzie Kurtz, EElizabeth Teeter, Olivia Hardy, Erin Morton, Xavier McKinnon, Cade Ostermeyer, Ben Davis, Cameron Loyal and Kerry Butler all deserve mention) and designed to within an inch of its life.
My caveat…Heathers: The Musical seems somehow…noisier this time. Not as smooth a ride. I’ve been wracking my brain to figure out why—usually I can parse these conundrums—but the best I can come up with is to liken it to the unlikely comparison point, Man of La Mancha. And a little bit My Fair Lady. While certain members of each creative team were still alive, they forbade major revivals that wouldn’t hew to the original sets and production concepts. La Mancha took that to extremes that became infamous, demanding replications of business down to the smallest gesture. Productions became increasingly bland and tired, the lack of spontaneity even hurting reappraisals of the material. La Mancha especially became a parody of itself. Fortunately, with new approaches, this did change.
I can’t say that Heathers has lost its juice. But I wonder if, over many, many restagings, it’s become a little too codified, and lost some of its connection with being a live event. With the freshness of its edginess. Not sure.
Especially if you’ve never seen it before, go and see what you think…